All Posts Tagged ‘Animals’

We don’t have a zoo in my city, but we have what we call a mini zoo in what were the moats of the city walls. It’s a pretty big extension, no longer full of water to stop the enemy. Now that there is no enemy to stop, there is grass instead of water, and it forms an enormous green area all around the city.

Around a big park named La Taconera, it has several ponds with all kinds of ducks, goose, and swans. There are also other animals like roosters, peacocks, pheasants, and other birds and a small herd of deer that usually lives in the top of the wall in a higher level than the rest of the animals . Sometimes wild birds stop there for a while to have a rest and look for food in this area. I spotted recently a couple of grey herons, and a hoopoe.

Everything family scale and it’s free. People like to walk and look at the animals. The view is always different, because they move around the moat. The only ones that never move from its place are the goose.

I’ve visited zoos, when I was a kid, but they make me a little sad above all to see the big wild animals in enclosed areas.

Once, I think it was in Barcelona, we entered the zoo and we saw a hippo peeing. We made a tour and when we came back to the hippo enclosure, he was still peeing and had formed a big puddle around him. That impressed me a lot. ¿How many litres can pee a hippo? I looked for an answer and nobody would give me one.

I love big cats, but not in captivity, I prefer to watch a good documentary. But I like documentaries focused in the beauty of the nature and the animals, not gloating on the cruelty of the wild life. We have every day enough cruelty in the news, close to our lives, to search for more blood when we try to relax watching something simply beautiful.

If you had to come up with one question, the answer to which would determine whether or not you could be friends with a person you’ve just met, what would it be? What would the right answer be?

“Have you ever been in Croatia? If the answer is “yes and I liked it very much”, I don’t know if we would become friends but I know we would have something to talk about for a while.

The same would happen with other questions to find out if the other person coincides with some of my interests: Animals, Music, the Sea, the Nature… It would be a good way to establish a conversation.

“I’m bankrupted. Would you like to have some coffee and talk with me?” If the answer is yes and the person is sober it would be a good sign. But I don’t know what would happen. Probably would end badly. The premise is a lie and I should explain that I lied because all was a kind of litmus test. Not the best way to start a friendship.

I don’t believe in friendship with a total stranger on a one question basis. I prefer the traditional way to make friends.

You get to design your own planet: tell us all about your planet — the weather, the seasons, the inhabitants. Go.

I love planet Earth. I don’t need to “design” a new one. I don’t like to play god. I think when people play god the results are always wrong for the Humanity or the Nature. There are so many wonders in this world to discover and enjoy! The problem is in us, humans. We destroy nature with our wrong manipulation, we destroy each other with hate, greed, injustice and wars. I think we need to take better care of what we have. That’s all. So my planet would be my beloved Earth populated by men and women from different races and cultures, all kind of animals and plants. And all living in peace and justice. This way I would have a lot of loved ones and friends, humans like me to talk with them share life moments with them and learn from them. And I would have a lot of opportunities to enjoy nature, to spend time just contemplating it and be happy with all that God gave us.